The Dynamics of Conflict

Abstract

It would be arbitrary to attempt to pinpoint any single event as the starting point of an ethnic conflict. As we have seen in previous chapters, conflicts may have a variety of underlying causes, conditioning factors and triggering events. It would be equally hazardous to predict the evolution of conflicts along any standard path. While ethnic confrontations may share some common features, each one is unique to the circumstances in which it occurs. The main difference between ethnic conflicts and other kinds of social struggle is their ‘intractability’, the fact that they appear to be almost impossible to solve. The conflicts studied in the UNRISD project are also characterized as being protracted; they persist over the years, intensify and wane, change over time, and sometimes peter out through the exhaustion of the antagonists, only to arise anew at a later date. A typical example of this process is the struggle of the Kurdish people. Exceptionally, such conflicts are solved through the political or military defeat of one of the parties and the victory of the other, or through negotiations. We shall have more to say about conflict resolution in later chapters.